Roberta and Curtis Campbell typically look forward to tax time. Most years, they receive a refund – a little extra cash to pay off credit card bills. But this year the California couple got a shock: According to their tax preparer, they owe the IRS more than $6,000. That’s the money the Campbells received from the federal government last year to make their Obamacare health coverage more affordable. Roberta, unemployed when she signed up for the plan, got a job halfway through the year and Curtis found full-time work. The couple’s total yearly income became too high to qualify for...

Complete Headline: Top Democratic Senator Harry Reid returns to US Capitol with eye bandages and bruises after exercise injury, but will skip State of the Union address Reid, 75, broke ribs and fractured bones in his face when an exercise machine broke and send him flying into cabinets at his new Nevada house He may lose sight in his right eye but is talking about running for a sixth term next year The Democrats' top senator will not attend the State of the Union address He has been taking meetings at his house in Washington, D.C. but hadn't been seen...

(Reuters) - On the sidewalk of a public housing development in Brooklyn, New York notorious for gang violence and drug activity, the words "Fascist pig, go home!" in black spray paint are fading but still legible. These are the Marcy Houses, 27 brick H-block buildings, each six stories high, that are home to nearly 4,300 people, many of whom are black or Latino. The rapper Jay-Z, who grew up in the complex, described Marcy as "a block away from hell," the place where "news cameras never come," in a song called "Where I'm From."

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Budget cuts at the IRS could delay tax refunds, reduce taxpayer services and hurt enforcement efforts, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said Thursday. About half the people who call the IRS for assistance this filing season won't be able to get through to a person, Koskinen said. Once tax returns are filed, there will be fewer agents to audit them. "Everybody's return will get processed," Koskinen told reporters. "But people have gotten very used to being able to file their return and quickly getting a refund. This year we may not have the resources, the people to provide...

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is backing construction of the Keystone XL oil sands pipeline in comments that downplay divisions among unions in the labor federation over the controversial project. “They are not divided on the pipeline itself,” Trumka said in a C-SPAN interview when asked about differences among unions over Keystone. “They are divided on how the pipeline is done.” ADVERTISEMENT “I think we are all unanimous by saying we should build the pipeline, but we have to do it consistent with all environmental standards, and I think we can work that out, I really do, and we are for...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) says he will work with Republicans when he's in the minority, vowing it will not be “get-even time.” Reid said Democrats, who lost the Senate in the midterm elections, will not operate the way Republicans did as the minority party, accusing them of obstruction. "We want to legislate. We’re not for stalling," he told reporters Thursday.

Rapper Big Paybacc has been shot dead while eating his lunch in a McDonald's near Los Angeles. The star, whose 2011 track Gangsta Luv has been viewed more than 250,000 times on YouTube, was gunned down by an attacker who walked in and opened fire. Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Deputy Guillermina Saldana said: "It appears to detectives that the victim was the intended target and that this was not a random shooting." The victim was identified officially as 38-year-old Habeeb Ameer Zekajj, the rapper's real name. Big Paybacc was connected to former G-Unit artist Spider Loc.

Because of my heritage as a descendant of Southern Unionist Republicans, I used to really admire Black Americans and their culture, going all the way back to the works of Joel Chandler Harris and B.A. Botkin. Because of this I've long been a fan of traditional acoustic country blues, especially from the Mississippi Delta (Charlie Patton!). I've been longing for years to visit the Dockery Plantation between Ruleville and Cleveland, which is where the blues was allegedly born and where so many of the great Delta bluesmen played and/or worked as farm hands. Several years ago I actually took a...

Less than a month after former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton distanced herself from President Obama by ridiculing his foreign policy, a key member of the Clinton kitchen cabinet is out with a new book that slams U.S. policy as “muddled, irresolute, and even feckless.” Doug Schoen’s double-barreled blast at Obama in the new book, The Russia-China Axis: The New Cold War and America’s Crisis of Leadership, is the latest sign that Clinton’s team will throw Obama under the bus if that’s what it takes to get her into the White House.

JACKSON, Mississippi — NFL legend Brett Favre has endorsed the re-election of Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS), cutting a television ad for the six-term incumbent days ahead of a runoff election against Tea Party-backed state senator Chris McDaniel. “I’ve learned through football that strong leadership makes the difference between winning and losing. And when it comes to our state’s future, trust me: Mississippi can win — and win big with Thad Cochran as our strong voice in Washington,” Favre says in the ad. “Thad Cochran always delivers, just like he did during Katrina.” But a drunk-driving accident involving Favre's brother and...

Lease terms are still being negotiated, but these are some of the things expected to be a part of it: rehabilitating Hangars One, 2 and 3, fixing up a golf course, starting a public use and educational facility, and getting rid of NASA’s operation and maintenance cost of the area, among other things. In a press release, NASA did not give a date as to when these negotiations would conclude.

Chinese choppers on Thursday evacuated 52 passengers who had been marooned near the South Pole since Christmas Eve aboard the Russian science vessel MS Akademik Shokalsky. It will take far more than helicopters, however, to salvage the theory of so-called “global warming.” It remains trapped in Antarctic ice. “We’re stuck in our own experiment,” said Chris Turney, a professor of climate change at Australia’s University of New South Wales. The voyage’s leader was no mere guide, and his fellow travelers were not just tourists. While news accounts portrayed these people as star-crossed adventurers, the frustrated Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) was...

With Target already reeling from a massive hack that left up to 40 million credit and debit cards compromised, The New York Times now reports that all that data has been pouring into the black market since the break-in. With the breach taking place between Black Friday and December 15th, criminals on hundreds of illicit card-selling markets have likely had access to consumer information for weeks to date. "Guests will not be held responsible for fraud" Security experts, including security blogger Brian Krebs, say that criminals sell stolen credit cards in bulk, with individual cards going for as little as...

A unpublished report says New York is writing tax credit refund checks to film and television studios that far exceed the amount of taxes they owe the state. The report, prepared for a tax reform commission appointed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, suggests the program should be scaled back. "The growth in the industry comes at the expense of higher taxes for other taxpayers or lower spending on state services and investments, possibly reducing activity in other sectors of the economy," the report concludes. It's a 137-page addendum to a study by the tax commission co-chaired by former state Comptroller H....

Obama canceled plans to attend summits in Indonesia and Brunei on Thursday, the White House said in a statement... will no longer visits to Malaysia and the Philippines... //snip// http://english.cri.cn/index.htm Chinese Premier to Attend East Asia Leaders Meetings, Visit Brunei, Thailand, Vietnam

George Zimmerman has been taken into custody in Central Florida after an incident involving a gun with another person. Lake Mary police say they were called to a house on Sprucewood Road Monday afternoon after a report that Zimmerman was involved in an altercation with another person with a threat involved. No other details were immediately available.

Should Gov. Scott Walker have pulled Portage native Scott Inglett's nomination as a student regent at the University of Wisconsin because Inglett signed a petition in 2011 to recall the Governor from office?

At a pre-trial hearing on May 28, the attorney for accused murderer George Zimmerman, Mark O'Mara, slipped a time bomb into the public record that no one in the major media seemed to notice. It had to do with a homeless man, and the relationship between that man and the victim of Zimmerman's alleged crime, Trayvon Martin. O'Mara's allusion had particular resonance in this case because Zimmerman first surfaced publicly in Sanford, Florida, in a case involving a homeless man. As it happened, in December 2010, a police lieutenant's son named Justin Collison sucker-punched a black homeless man named Sherman...

The noise in the hen house this morning is the flutter and cackle of the chickens from Benghazi, scuttling home to roost. The House committee opening hearings Wednesday on what happened there is likely to serve up chicken surprise. The four whistleblowing witnesses scheduled to testify to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are said to be eager to tell a story far different from the various accounts, all confused and all contradictory, peddled by the Obama administration. Someone at the White House should have remembered that old Washington chestnut, as true now as ever,

In response to Gawker’s controversial decision to publish the names of every registered handgun owner in New York City on Tuesday afternoon, Fox’s The Five retaliated by publishing the phone number and email address of Gawker founder Nick Denton for its audience. Give the dude a ring and give him a piece of your mind. 646-470-4295 nick@gawker.com

The taxes Israel collected for the Palestinian Authority but did not pass on should go to Israel anyway to cover the PA’s debts, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Tuesday, speaking at a Hanukkah event for Yisrael Beytenu party activists. “I hear they’re saying that Israel froze the Palestinians’ tax money. We didn’t freeze any Palestinian money,” he said. “To this point we paid 700 million shekels advance salaries for PA workers and we paid another 900 million when we absorbed the cost of water and electricity that the Palestinians were supposed to pay for but did not… What we’re doing...

I have an uncle in Wisconsin. He's slightly mentally handicapped and lives in subsidized housing because of his income level. In tribute to my Grandma (who's been gone a number of years and of whom I still miss), I send my uncle a check every month. The check is only $30.00. I believe he uses it for living expenses that aren't covered by assistance. I rarely get an acknowledgement/thank you from him - unless of course, I'm late in mailing it out. My uncle voted for Obama. Normally, I say "Live and let live" and let it go at that....

President Barack Obama’s former auto industry adviser and two former Treasury Department officials cracked at the last minute before a House oversight committee subcommittee hearing and agreed to stop stonewalling an investigation into alleged union favoritism during the administration’s General Motors bailout. Ron Bloom, Obama’s former auto czar, and former Treasury officials Matt Feldman and Harry Wilson have refused to give interviews to the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) about their roles in topping up pensions for union workers while non-union workers lost nearly their entire pensions. The Treasury Department’s actions during the auto bailout...

The Supreme Court says a union must give nonmembers an immediate chance to object to unexpected fee increases that all workers are required to pay in closed-shop situations. The court on Thursday ruled for Dianne Knox and other nonmembers of the Service Employees International Union's Local 1000, who wanted to object and opt out of a $12 million special assessment the union required from its California public sector members. Knox and others said the union did not give them a legally required notice that the increase was coming.

Houston Gets Lame Space Shuttle Replica Delivered In Lamest Way Possible The deliveries of the real Space Shuttles to their final resting places were grand events that created amazing images. Houston, which deserved a real d@mn shuttle, is getting a replica. And just in case Houstonians didn't know they were getting shortchanged, it was delivered on a plane but instead on a d@mn barge. Thanks, NASA. I'm not going to get into all the reasons why Houston didn't get a Space Shuttle as it might be mistaken as saying someone else doesn't deserve one. Clearly, both D.C. and Los Angeles...

Say, isn’t this starting to resemble a certain reality-game show on television? Or would I be fired for pointing that out? Last night, reports surfaced that casino and real-estate tycoon Donald Trump would endorse Newt Gingrich in Nevada today, just two days before the binding caucuses. This morning, both CNN and ABC say that Trump will now endorse … Mitt Romney: Mitt Romney will receive Donald Trump’s presidential endorsement Thursday, sources with knowledge of the endorsement told CNN. Trump will make the announcement in Las Vegas, two days before the Nevada caucuses. ABC is a little more specific about its...

Obama’s National Labor Relations Board has put out another new rule that just happens to have potential benefits for Big Labor. The National Labor Relations Board has approved a new rule that requires private employers to display posters that tell workers about their right to form a union.The rule requires businesses to prominently display the new posters that explain the right to bargain collectively, distribute union literature and engage in other union activities without reprisal.Union advocates say the rule gives workers information they should know about their legal rights. But business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, say the...

The Justice Department is investigating whether the nation’s largest credit ratings agency, Standard & Poor’s, improperly rated dozens of mortgage securities in the years leading up to the financial crisis, according to two people interviewed by the government and another briefed on such interviews. The investigation began before Standard & Poor’s cut the United States’ AAA credit rating this month, but it is likely to add fuel to the political firestorm that has surrounded that action. Lawmakers and some administration officials have since questioned the agency’s secretive process, its credibility and the competence of its analysts, claiming to have found...

U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan's open defiance of Speaker John Boehner's efforts to solve the debt-ceiling crisis could cost the Urbana Republican his safe seat in next year's election. Two Republican sources deeply involved in configuring new Ohio congressional districts confirmed to The Dispatch today that Jordan's disloyalty to Boehner has put him in jeopardy of being zeroed out of a district.

As Hugo Chávez graces the big screen in a rowdy city center bar in Caracas, Santiago Valledare stands up and salutes, with no hint of irony. After a completely uncharacteristic three-week silence, his president is about to announce that he has received treatment for a tumor while in Cuba. After watching the president’s subdued statement, Valledare stands firm: “My Comandante doesn't have cancer. It’s not true,” he says, still standing. “He is the best president we have ever had.... [He is] a strong man. He is not ill.” Think you know Latin America? Take our geography quiz. Other so-called Chavistas...

While Bungler-in-Chief Obama was in El Paso “getting in their faces” (i.e., of Republicans) at a stage-managed campaign event, the incompetents of his administration’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF) were doing their best imitation if Jim Carrey’s “Fire Marshall Bill” character in North Texas. As the Plainview Herald reported, a BATF training exercise went awry, and the resulting wildfire scorched another 150 acres of the drought-devastated Texas panhandle. The blazes have been extinguished, but the Herald’s editor writes that the federal fiasco is far from over: Motley County Attorney Tom Edwards said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco...

A bipartisan panel investigating the financial crisis has referred cases of potential wrongdoing by financial industry officials to the Justice Department, a person familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. The 2009 law creating the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission instructs the congressionally appointed panel to refer anyone who may have violated the law to the Justice Department and state attorneys general

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has a warning for Democrats seething over his shrewd political tactics: Get used to it. “There’s much for them to be angst-ridden about,” McConnell said with a chuckle. “If they think it’s bad now, wait ‘til next year.” Emboldened by Democrats’ decision to scrap an omnibus funding bill and extend the Bush-era tax cuts for two years, McConnell is ready to deploy his larger Republican minority next year, insisting that Democratic leaders will need to bend to his party’s will – particularly on spending issues. Indeed, McConnell is signaling that the White House should be...

If you can stomach it, check out this rant at the Daily Kos. Here’s the opening: For all y’all rich folks, enjoy that champagne, or whatever fancy ass Scotch you drink. And for y’all a bit lower on the economic scale, enjoy your Pabst Blue Ribbon, or whatever shitty ass beer you favor. Whatever the case, and whatever your economic station, know this… You need to drink up. And quickly. And heavily. Because your time is limited. Real damned limited. So party while you can, but mind the increasingly loud clock ticking away in the corners of your consciousness. The...

Buried in the details of the deal to close California's $19-billion budget deficit is a roughly $30-million tax break crafted to benefit a company owned by members of one of the state's richest and most politically influential families, according to a legislative analysis obtained by The Times. The provision, which will allow the Humboldt Redwood Co. to deduct $20 million in old losses from future taxes, is also expected to cover penalties and interest for the firm co-owned by three sons of Donald G. Fisher, founder of the Gap and Banana Republic, said company Chairman Sandy Dean. The tax break...

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Al-Qaeda's operational chief for Afghanistan and Pakistan has been killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan's lawless tribal border areas, Pakistani security officials said Tuesday. A covert American drone campaign has this month ramped up attacks on Al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives in the region as part of efforts to bring an end to a nine-year war in Afghanistan so that US troops can return home. Sheikh Fateh was reportedly made Al-Qaeda chief in Afghanistan and Pakistan after Al-Qaeda's purported number three and former Osama bin Laden treasurer Mustafa Abu al-Yazid was killed on May 21, in...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: At Andrews Air Force Base today, President Obama cast his state of the economy in upbeat terms and we're working right now on an audio sound bite from last November of me reacting to Obama, basically saying identically word-for-word what he said today about the economy. It's pretty illustrative. "To every American who's looking for work, I promise you we're going to keep on doing everything we can. I'll do everything in my power to help our economy create jobs and opportunities for all people." So he's talking to you personally, whatever you are, wherever you are....

EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A Rhode Island boy whose school banned a hat he made because the toy soldiers on it carried tiny guns was awarded a medal on Friday for his patriotic efforts. Lt. Gen. Reginald Centracchio, the retired head of the Rhode Island National Guard, gave 8-year-old David Morales a medal called a challenge coin during an appearance on WPRO-AM's John DePetro show. Centracchio said the second-grader should be thanked for recognizing veterans and soldiers."You did nothing wrong, and you did an outstanding job," he said. "We can only hope that kids of your caliber will continue to...

The expansion of passenger, high-speed and freight rail is critical to the economic growth of the United States. As chairman of the Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials, my goal is to have high-speed, intercity passenger and commuter rail lines connecting nationwide to enhance and improve our systems of transportation. A robust passenger rail system in America will go a long way toward solving some of our nation’s economic, energy, environmental and transportation challenges, as well as create thousands of jobs. These benefits, however, do not come without a price tag, and experience in other countries makes it clear...

PHOENIX (AP) -- An Arizona utility regulator suggests there could be payback for the Los Angeles City Council's vote to boycott Arizona businesses because of the state's new law targeting illegal immigration.

What do you get when tea party activists team up with Ron Paulbots? A nightmare: The official platform for the Republican Party of Maine is now a mix of right-wing fringe policies, libertarian buzzwords and outright conspiracy theories. The document calls for the elimination of the Department of Education and the Federal Reserve, demands an investigation of “collusion between government and industry in the global warming myth,” suggests the adoption of “Austrian Economics,” declares that “‘Freedom of Religion’ does not mean ‘freedom from religion’” (which I guess makes atheism illegal), insists that “healthcare is not a right,” calls for the...

Evidence continues to mount that GM and its government enablers are just full of malarkey when claiming that the taxpayer-owned automaker has paid back its bailout "in full and ahead of schedule." Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), along with Reps. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) and Scott Garrett (R-N.J.), contacted Treasury officials to find out why they had claimed GM had repaid its debt in full. To which Treasury responded: "Treasury has never suggested that the loan repayment represented a full return of all government assistance." Which, among other things, is belied by an official Treasury press release titled, "GM REPAYS TREASURY LOAN...

The left and the media knee-capped the Bush presidency for not making Hurricane Katrina go away fast enough. So now, like a village feud in ancient Sicily, the right and its media are knee-capping the Obama presidency for not making the Gulf's spilled oil go away fast enough. Boo hoo. Are we supposed to say that the criticism of Mr. Obama is unfair? Sorry. The permanent smackdown that is now U.S. politics has devolved into a zero-sum proposition whenever anything bad happens in American life—an oil spill, a terrorist bomb in Times Square, a financial meltdown. *SNIP* It is obvious...

Obama May Send Millions to Planned Parenthood Abortion Biz for HIV Testing Washington, DC -- President Barack Obama may have found another way to thank the Planned Parenthood abortion business for supporting him in the 2008 presidential elections. The Obama administration has announced funding for a multi-million dollar HIV testing program that could direct big bucks to his pro-abortion ally. http://LifeNews.com/nat6231.html

Few combinations are more poisonous than race and politics. That combination has torn whole nations apart and led to the slaughters of millions in countries around the world. You might think we would have learned a lesson from that and stay away from injecting race into political issues. Yet playing the race card has become an increasingly common response to growing public anger at the policies of the Obama administration and the way those policies have been imposed. When the triumphant Democrats made their widely televised walk up Capitol Hill after passing the health care bill, led by a smirking...

Cincinnati Tea Party meets downtown Cincinnati, to hold candlelight vigil and send a massage to U.S.Rep.Steve Driehaus-DWest Price Hill,to vote no on the Obama Insurance Bill. My final headcount was nearly 400, counting teenagers and children too.

Rep. Eric Massa, D-N.Y., under investigation for alleged sexual harassment of a male staffer, accused House Democratic leaders of lying about the charges against him and using them to run him out of Congress because he voted against health care reform when it last came before the House. Roll Call reports this morning that on the local radio show he hosts in his district, Massa said he had not been informed of the sexual harassment allegations before they became public. He claimed that Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., spoke falsely when he said he had brought the matter to him...